The borough’s largest healthcare chain laid out a strategy May 1 to shepherd locals suffering from non-life-threatening issues to other buildings in the Monte network, including walk-in urgent care sites, including the nearby Montefiore Westchester Square hospital.

Since March 2013, Montefiore Westchester has been used as a “freestanding emergency department,” with outpatient services, but with no overnight beds. The hospital instead busses those patients to other Monte hosptials.

Semczuk said the average time to see a doctor at Westchester Square Medical Center is a mere 37 minutes – far faster than the wait time at Weiler, which locals complain has ballooned into several hours waiting time over the last few years.

A group of east Bronx pols –including Assemblymen Mike Benedetto and Mark Gjonaj, and Councilmember Jimmy Vacca – held a press conference Thursday outside Weiler’s emergency room at the Einstein campus to put the heat on the hospital to answers locals’ gripes.

Besides the long wait times, patients and nurses have reported that the facility is so cramped that some patients spend the night on gurneys in the hallway.

“We need to hold their feet to the fire,” said Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez, vice president of the New York State Nurses Association. “We know there’s places where beds can be opened [in Weiler], so our patients don’t have to languish in hallways and on stretchers cramped in the emergency department.”

Monte brass said the hospital will shortly launch a marketing campaign and hand out pamphlets pushing patients to go to other facilities and ease the pressure on Weiler.

But Monte’s Semczuk said he would not commit to adding any beds to Weiler.

He would only that the hospital would “carefully look at opportunities to expand in-patient bed capacity.”

“We’ve already added 100 beds, and if we need to add more beds, we will add more beds,” he said. “It is not exactly clear where in the system we would do that.”

The hospital would also not commit to hiring more nurses to deal with the overcrowding.